MIKE FM - not the original "Monster Mash"

[Varulven]

MIKE FM played an interesting version of The Monster Mash, a re-make by
Bobby "Boris" Pickett, formerly of Somerville, Massachusetts. Little Walter likes to
make sure stations like WODS and the compilation albums "get it right" by playing
the original take and mix that you heard on the radio. For example, WODS was
playing Little Eva's "The Locomotion" without Carole King's handclaps. I'm pretty sure
Walter put the right version back into their library. The only exception is that
Little Walter tracked a new mix of Tommy James "Mony Mony". It is originally
a mono record, Walter re-mixed the original tapes and made it stereo. But it
still sounds like it sounded years ago - authentic.


Side note: Bobby "Boris" Pickett used to live around the corner from my cousin in Somerville.
She ran the Johnny Crawford fanclub, Johnny Crawford from THE RIFLEMAN.

She ran the Rifelman's fan club; The Count went to the Rifleman nightclub! What a small world!

http://www.themonstermash.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_"Boris"_Pickett

Bobby "Boris" Pickett (born Robert George Pickett, February 11, 1938, in Somerville, Massachusetts) is a musician and actor, best known for singing and co-writing the 1962 hit novelty song, "Monster Mash".



http://www.celebhost.net/johnnycrawford/

Born March 26th, 1946 in Los Angeles, Johnny Crawford came from a theatrical family. As a child, he began a TV career as one of Walt Disney's original Mouseketeers. It wasn't long before he landed the role of Mark McCain in ABC-TV's popular Western series, The Rifleman, starring Chuck Connors. The show's debut was in the fall of 1958, on Tuesday nights. Johnny's recordings of the songs, Cindy's Birthday, Rumors and Patti Ann, just to name a few, are very well remembered to this day by teenaged girls who "grew up" with him.


happy halloween

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Last year on Halloween I heard "Mike FM" play the Grateful Dead's live 1978 cover version of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves Of London", in the afternoon! I don't think I've ever heard that version on a commercial station. It's only available on Volume #25 of the Dead's live concert CD archive series called Dick's Picks (named as a tribute to the band's late archivist Dick Latvala, who started the series before he passed away in 1999).

 

[raccoonradio]

>>Bobby "Boris" Pickett

Morgan White Jr. and Bob Katzen had a stage show, "Don't Touch That Dial" which I saw at Nick's Comedy
Stop. Pickett played a variety of roles in the skit-comedy-spoof including Archive Bunker. Somewhere I have
a tape of a 1990 Jerry Williams show where Morgan and Bob stop by to promote it.

 

[argytunes]

???

I wonder if a few radio stations will "resurrect" the Bobby "Boris" Pickett tune: MONSTERS HOLIDAY during the month of December?

It still holds up pretty well...and definitely is better than "PABLO THE YULETIDE DONKEY!" :

argytunes

 

[Jacko]

I heard Mike FM play the Monster Mash last night and picked up on two things:

1) The version did sound different--I think the recording Mike FM played was in mono and it sounds like it's either only the left or right channel of the audio that they're playing, because I could barely hear the piano in the song, but could hear the back-up singers.

2) Did anyone else pick up that Mike FM bleeped out the word "jolt" from the song? The line goes "and get a jolt from my electrode." Obviously it's a sexual reference, but it's funny that a station like Mike FM has to edit it out.

My theory: Perhaps when somebody went to make the edit (taking out the word "jolt"), the song got transferred from two-channel stereo to only playing one of the song's channels so the recording sounds like it's in mono. Hope that makes sense.

Is anyone playing Christmas music yet?

Jacko

 

[broken headphones]

???

I wonder if a few radio stations will "resurrect" the Bobby "Boris" Pickett tune: MONSTERS HOLIDAY during the month of December?

It still holds up pretty well...and definitely is better than "PABLO THE YULETIDE DONKEY!" :

argytunes

Well, I have heard WATD in Marshfield play Monsters Holiday.....

 

[Varulven]

argytunes has a good point, Monster's Holiday is fun.

The MIKE FM that I heard, Jacko, was a modern re-make. You could hear the words more clearly, the instrumentation was slick and very 80s, none of that 60's crisp charm was on the disc, including the vocals, though Bobby Pickett emulated his previous work pretty well. You could hear him say "The coffin bangers were about to arrive", which sounds like "Coffin diners" on the original on GarPax Records, re-released by London.

Uni still hasn't put the CD of the original out, to my knowledge; I was working with Bobby's manager and the people at Hip0 Select/Uni to do just that (the label which released Genya Ravan and Bobby Hebb discs with my web liner notes), so maybe next year.



Uni Music "Urban Desire" by Genya Ravan
http://www.hiposelect.com/scr.public.product.asp?product_id=75d1afee-a931-6c2d-bc41-bff4e7fad46b

 

[DavidZ]

Mannheim Steamroller has released Halloween II which features a vocal remake of Monster Mash. MIKE FM may have been playing that version.

 

[Varulven]

Turns out there appears to be many re-makes by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. You can go to his site on AMG and
sample them.

K-TEL sounds different from both what MIKE FM played and the original
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:67rb288t054a


The original version is, of course, "the greatest", as another much copied song says, Dobie Gray's THE IN CROWD "Other guys imitate us, but the original is still the greatest, in crowd!."

Gary Paxton's original production is brilliant.

Children Of The Night
here's an awful album with yet another Boston artist called "The Count" - actually "Count Dracula" (there were multiple Counts)
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:48jwear04x87

as Dobie Gray said THE ORIGINAL IS STILL THE GREATEST! Their lp was released 1977, my E.P. says 1976 but my band was around a LOT longer and certainly lasted longer than "Children of The Night"

 

[raccoonradio]

>>Mannheim Steamroller has released Halloween II which features a vocal remake of Monster Mash

Once in awhile that band's Chip Davis is on with Howie. He was on last week and they played a bit of the
MS version...Howie said, "No offense, Chip, but I still like the original".

Believe it or not...guess what country music classic Chip Davis played on? "Mercy sakes alive, looks like
we got us a CONVOY!"

 

[Varulven]

CONVOY! Thank God I was listening to Ed Schultz! C.W. McCall...yee ha, please forward to Barry Scott for shredding purposes only.

 

[Oldbones]

Little Walter likes to
make sure stations like WODS and the compilation albums "get it right" by playing
the original take and mix that you heard on the radio. For example, WODS was
playing Little Eva's "The Locomotion" without Carole King's handclaps. I'm pretty sure
Walter put the right version back into their library.

When was Walter music director of WODS? How many stereo mixes do oldies stations play that are quite different than the mono single? 'Most anything on ABC/Dunhill qualifies, as do a lot of 60s Motown tunes. Alas, the stereo mix has become the de facto "correct" version since in most cases the original mono 45 mix is long out of print.
As far as Locomotion goes, there seem to be 2 versions of the song, one with and one without the handclaps. Both were issued as singles on Dimension records (I have copies of both versions). I don't know why there are 2 mixes of the song.

 

[Oldbones]

It still holds up pretty well...and definitely is better than "PABLO THE YULETIDE DONKEY!" :

argytunes

Actually, it's "Dominic The Donkey". Agreed, dumb song. Where did that one come from? Don't think I ever heard it until a couple years ago...had to have been recorded in the early 60s.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Little Walter likes to make sure stations like WODS and the compilation albums "get it right" by playing the original take and mix that you heard on the radio. For example, WODS was playing Little Eva's "The Locomotion" without Carole King's handclaps. I'm pretty sure Walter put the right version back into their library.

When was Walter music director of WODS?

Walter was never music director of WODS, however he still made many contributions to their music library through the music director when he was there. They knew that Walter's versions were the best possible versions, so they accepted his contributions.

I worked with Walter at 1150 WMEX when it was an oldies station, and he did the same thing there. The PD and MD knew that Walter's versions/masters of the songs always sounded better than the oldies compilations that were sent down by corporate, and he contributed many better sounding original versions of oldies to their library back then. He had a similar arrangement at WODS for a time.

 

[Varulven]

Yes, Walter did much to enhance the library of WODS; he may have been involved in the Christmas albums they released as well. I think it was Greg Strassell who brought Lost 45s on, and who should have let Walter continue to do his show, even if it followed Barry Scott's also excellent program.

If my memory is correct, didn't they switch from The Time Machine to the Lost 45s only AFTER Walter appeared on Channel 2 for a few weeks - WODS appearing to maximize the promotion they could get from Walter on WGBH TV before switching shows. A little gratitude!...not in radio... again, my memory is foggy on this - anyone clarify?

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Yes, Walter did much to enhance the library of WODS; he may have been involved in the Christmas albums they released as well. I think it was Greg Strassell who brought Lost 45s on, and who should have let Walter continue to do his show, even if it followed Barry Scott's also excellent program.

If my memory is correct, didn't they switch from The Time Machine to the Lost 45s only AFTER Walter appeared on Channel 2 for a few weeks - WODS appearing to maximize the promotion they could get from Walter on WGBH TV before switching shows. A little gratitude!...not in radio... again, my memory is foggy on this - anyone clarify?

Yes, Walter was let go just a couple of weeks after his appearance on the Channel 2 fundraisers, but that was coincidental. I also would've loved to have seen Lost 45's go Sundays 6-10 PM followed by Walter's Time Machine 10 PM - 2 AM, but Strassell joined WODS as PD when it was determined time to get rid of ALL pre-1964 music from the station and update it through the 1970's, as most major market oldies stations nationwide were doing at the time.

Lost 45's fit their new direction as a specialty show with it's prime focus on the mid-70's, and unfortunately the Time Machine, which plays almost all pre-1964 music and doesn't touch the 70's at all, didn't. (I remember Walter doing some fill-ins on other WODS shifts toward the end of his stint where he had to play 70's music from the new playlist, and as great as he is, he sounded like he was out of his element).

As much as I missed hearing Walter do his show live on a major market signal, Strassell (and Pete Falconi after him) apparently knew what they were doing updating WODS. The station had been floundering in the ratings before Strassell when it was still playing 1950's through only very early 70's music. Since updating the music and bringing in veteran personalities like Uncle Dale and J.J. Wright (and Karen Blake's not doing shabby in afternoon drive either), WODS has been consistently second to WMJX for the top spot among all adult demo music stations in the greater Boston market.